Cyberwars

Main

Technology

Army Technology
Cyberwars
Military Technology
Newsfactor Technology
Technology World
Yahoo Technology
Random Feeds

Archives

| Jun 2010 | May 2010 | Apr 2010 | Mar 2010 | Feb 2010 | Jan 2010 | Dec 2009 | Nov 2009 | Oct 2009 | Sep 2009 | Aug 2009 | Jul 2009 | Jun 2009 | May 2009 | Apr 2009 | Mar 2009 | Feb 2009 | Jan 2009 | Dec 2008 | Nov 2008 | Oct 2008 | Sep 2008 | Aug 2008 | Jul 2008 | Jun 2008 | May 2008 | Apr 2008 | Mar 2008 | Feb 2008 | Jan 2008 | Dec 2007 | Nov 2007 |

Wed, 2 Jun 10
Facebook users warned of 'likejacking' scam
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Facebook_users_warned_of_likejacking_scam_999.html
Washington (AFP) June 1, 2010 - Internet security firm Sophos has warned Facebook users to be on the alert for a scam which sends a spam message to all of their friends on the social network.

Sophos, in a pair of blog posts late Monday, said "hundreds of thousands" of Facebook users have fallen for the scam which it dubbed "likejacking."

It said some Facebook users had received a message such as "This man takes a picture of himself EVERYDAY for 8 YEARS!!" and were encouraged to click on a link.

Sophos said clicking on the link takes a Facebook user to what appears to be a blank page with a "Click here to continue" message.

Sophos said clicking on the page publishes the original message on their own Facebook page with a "like" notation and recommends it to all of their Facebook friends.

"This of course posts a message to your newsfeed, your friends see it and click on it, and so it spreads," Sophos said.

Sophos warned last week about a Facebook scam designed to trick users into installing adware, a software package that automatically plays, displays or downloads advertisements to their computer.

That followed a similar scam that spread on Facebook the week before involving a fake posting tagged as the "sexiest video ever," according to Sophos.

Wed, 2 Jun 10
Addressing The Critical Need For Emerging Technologies In Cybersecurity
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Addressing_The_Critical_Need_For_Emerging_Technologies_In_Cybersecurity_999.html
Los Angeles CA (SPX) May 28, 2010 - Dr. Robert Brammer, Northrop Grumman Information Systems Sector vice president and chief technology officer, led a panel calling for increased collaboration in cybersecurity research addressing a critical and immediate national need at the Annual Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) STRATCOM Cyberspace Symposium.

Other panel participants included members of the Northrop Grumman Cybersecurity Research Consortium, Dr. Tom Knight, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Dr. Eugene Spafford, Purdue University. Also participating in the panel was Dr. Michael Van Putte, DARPA.

During the panel discussion, the participants addressed the urgent national need for increased cybersecurity research and development for emerging technologies in these areas. The participants also discussed the programs currently in progress to help address this need.

"We see some promising emerging technologies in many of the areas that our Cybersecurity Research Consortium is addressing," said Brammer. "Substantial work by the government, industry, and academia is needed to realize the potential of these technologies for large-scale implementations that will have national impact."

Northrop Grumman established the Cybersecurity Research Consortium in 2009 to help develop leap-ahead technologies in the cybersecurity field. The consortium includes Carnegie Mellon University, MIT, and Purdue. The research conducted through the consortium spans many areas of cybersecurity, defined as protection of information and information systems on networks.

These areas include hardware and software security, privacy, simulation of cyber attacks and defenses, protection of critical national infrastructures, and others. Currently, the consortium is involved in 10 projects at the member universities with complementary research projects at Northrop Grumman.

The Cybersecurity Research Consortium is just one of the initiatives that Northrop Grumman is taking to help develop advances in cyber technology. Earlier this month, the company announced that it would be the presenting sponsor of the Air Force Association's CyberPatriot III competition.

CyberPatriot is a national high school cyber defense competition designed to excite, educate, and motivate the next generation of cyber defenders. Through this sponsorship, Northrop Grumman will be recognizing its responsibility to helping develop cybersecurity leaders and promoting new technological advances.

Wed, 2 Jun 10
Australia minister attacks 'creepy' Google chief in Web row
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Australia_minister_attacks_creepy_Google_chief_in_Web_row_999.html
Sydney (AFP) May 25, 2010 - Australia's communications minister has called Google's privacy policy "a bit creepy" in personal attacks against the head of the company and fellow Web giant Facebook in an Internet filtering row.

Stephen Conroy said Google had committed the "single greatest breach in the history of privacy" by collecting private wireless data while taking pictures for its "Street View" mapping service, and dismissed claims it was an accident.

"It was actually quite deliberate... The computer program that collected it was designed to collect this information," Conroy told a Senate committee hearing late Monday.

Asked whether he was disputing Google's assertion that the Street View cars had gathered the fragments of personal data in error, Conroy said: "Yes. I'm saying they wrote a piece of code designed to do it."

Google has led criticism of Conroy's plan for an Australia-wide Internet filter, warning it could damage the nation's reputation as a liberal democracy and set a dangerous global precedent.

Canberra's bid to block sites featuring material such as rape, drug use, bestiality and child sex abuse with an Internet-wide content filter also attracted condemnation from Yahoo! and Microsoft.

But Conroy accused Google of hypocrisy when it came to censorship, and said it considered itself above the law, singling out chief executive Eric Schmidt for reproach.

"When it comes to their attitude to their own censorship, their response is simply, 'trust us'. That is what they actually state on their website: 'Trust us'," said Conroy, a Senator with the ruling centre-left Labor party.

"They consider that they are the appropriate people to make the decisions about people's privacy data, and that they are perfectly entitled to drive the streets and collect private information by photographing over fences."

"I think that the approach taken by Mr. Schmidt is a bit creepy, frankly," Conroy added.

Conroy also slammed Facebook and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, for what he said was a "complete disregard" for users' privacy, describing it as a "corporate giant who is answerable to no one and motivated solely by profit".

"Zuckerberg, after breaking up with his girlfriend, developed a website of all the photos from his yearbook so he and his mates could rank the girls according to their looks. An auspicious start for Facebook," Conroy said of the social site's origins.

Greens Senator Scott Ludlam accused the communications minister of a "corporate character assassination" of Google, but Conroy said he was merely "describing their own words and actions".

Wed, 2 Jun 10
Obama urged to fast-track cyber policy
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Obama_urged_to_fast-track_cyber_policy_999.html
Washington (UPI) May 24, 2010 - The Obama administration is coming under increasing pressure from industry professionals to fast-track cybersecurity policies announced a year ago.

"It's still not a plan but rather a plan to begin planning," wrote Adam Stone in a Federal Times.com survey of developments since a Cyberspace Policy Review, announced by the administration in 2009, and a nationwide cybersecurity awareness campaign last fall.

The review document explored the state of the nation's cyber defenses amid a spate of incidents involving organized hacking that affected government departmental Web sites, corporate cyberspace and public service portals.

Damage to the cyberspace was estimated to have cost tens of billions of dollars, though more figures were never revealed because of fears that disclosure would damage reputations of departments and corporate entities.

Cybersecurity officials also cited links between organized hacking, organized crime and "They are in the process of rethinking what it is that we ought to be doing," said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, an association representing the information security sector. "This is probably a good way to start."

Stone said a few specifics are emerging.

"Private and public sectors will need to work in closer cooperation. Government agencies will need to implement new monitoring and defensive technologies. And federal managers will need to take a more active role in enforcing cybersecurity practices within their organizations," he said.

The Obama plan follows on from the Bush administration's Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative and is believed by experts to have incorporated elements from CNCI.

Among items of interest to the federal workforce, Stone said, a 12-point CNCI summary calls for a continuation of the Trusted Internet Connections initiative, which is meant to reduce the number of connections between government computers and the Internet.

There are plans also to implement deployment of an intrusion detection system of sensors across the government.

Coordination of research and development across government needs to improve and there are plans to develop a pipeline of skilled cybersecurity employees.

Although coordination and cooperation with the private sector to address security matters of common interest is on the cards, Stone saw problems with it.

"There's wide agreement that the expertise of the private sector ought to be aligned with the security needs of government," he said, pointing out that the private sector may not yet respond positively.

"To secure our country from cyberattacks, we must have shared responsibility between the government and the private sector," U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., told the Business Software Alliance Cybersecurity Forum in April.

However, private sector sources cited by Stone said that industry may not be ready to work with government and vice versa.

Pat Clawson, CEO of security and vulnerability technologies firm Lumension, said, "There has been no effort in terms of ironing out the legalities."

He pointed out that regulatory and legal issues might prevent publicly held companies from sharing sensitive corporate data about activities within their networks -- data that government might need to implement security measures.

However, "There is no bridge in sight that will allow for certain types of cooperation," Clawson said.

"Today, if a company has a cybersecurity problem and wants to notify authorities, the only option is generally to call the FBI," Clawson said in a recent blog posting. "That can result in long delays and in many cases nothing gets done -- and the company ends up with negative publicity if the story gets out that there's been a security breach."

Industry sources said fear of negative publicity was one of the reasons material losses resulting from cyberattacks and hacking remained one of the great unsolved mysteries.

Banks and major corporations involved with financial transactions continue to keep a lid on losses rather than risk loss of customers with public disclosures that show them as victims of cybercrime.

Industry analysts want the government to make a start with implementing basic defensive measures such as more sophisticated scanning and robust firewalls. The technologies for implementing those measures are mature and ready to deploy, they said.

"None of this creates big privacy issues, none of this creates questions about law enforcement and jurisdiction, or questions about offensive tactical military maneuvers," said Robert Richardson, director of San Francisco's Computer Security Institute.

He said the administration's cybersecurity agenda was "just a question of will and budget."